Given Samsung’s habit of shamelessly copying everything Apple does, I wasn’t at all surprised to see this morning’s report that the South Korean company had just spent $650 million on a fingerprint scanning firm called FingerPrint Cards. In fact, I simply rolled my eyes when I saw the news and thought, “there’s a surprise.”

But it appears that the whole thing was completely fabricated. The press release that went out announcing the move was false, and both Samsung and FingerPrint Cards have denied the acquisition.

Apple has issued a press release this morning confirming that iPhone 5 pre-orders topped two million units during its first 24 hours of availability. That’s more than double the record held by the handset’s predecessor, the iPhone 4S, and Apple has warned that while the majority of pre-orders will be delivered on launch day, September 21, “many” are scheduled to be delivered in October.

With Apple’s initial iPhone 5 pre-order stock gone within just one hour on Friday, we knew the company’s sixth-generation smartphone was going to be huge. Even Apple itself has said that it has been “blown away” by the demand. It’s little surprise to hear that the iPhone 5 has broken AT&T’s sale record, then, making it the fastest-selling iPhone the company has ever sold.

Just days after opening the App Store to 32 additional countries, Apple released a press release this morning to announce that the iTunes Store is also extending its reach to another nine countries in Asia today, including Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan.

Earlier today, Tim Cook played coy with how many new iPads they had sold opening weekend, but a mere eight hours later, the numbers are in, and it’s a record setting weekend indeed: Apple sold 3 million iPads in the first weekend of sales alone. That’s three times as many as last year… and with plenty to go around for everyone. Press release after the jump.

Apple’s iAd network has already shaken up the mobile advertising world here in the United States since its July debut, but come December, it’s going to do the same to Europe, Cupertino has just announced.